[EM] A candidate winning multiple seats.

[David L Wetzell]

Vidar Wahlberg,

One very simple rule that transcends the dichotomy between a party-list and
a candidate-based PR election rule is 3-seat LR Hare.  Each party has one
candidate and each voter one vote.  Typically the top 3 vote-getters would
get one seat each, but if the top vote-getter beats the 3rd place candidate
by more than one-third of the total vote then (s)he'd win two seats and get
to pick a vice-candidate(who could've been pre-selected and already
announced prior to the election).  And, theoretically, if the first place
candidate beat the second place candidate by more than 2/3rds of the total
vote then (s)he'd win three seats and get to pick two vice-candidates.

So if the vote totals were: 40, 30, 20, 10 then the top three would win one
seat each, But if the vote totals were: 50, 35, 10, 5 then the top
candidate would win two seats and get to pick a vice-candidate.
And if the vote totals were 80-10-7-3 then the top candidate would win
three seats.

This uses the Hare quota and so it's best to couple it with the use of at
least one at-large single-winner seat to help with the formation of a
working gov't.  It tends to increase equality by virtue of how a third
party candidate can win a seat with as little as 10% of the vote if the top
candidate gets less than 43.3% of the vote and no other third party
candidate does better.  This makes the third seat very likely to be
competitive.  The top two candidates have more secure elections, but if
their parties are competing in the single-winner seats then they'd need to
help their party's candidates in that other election.

There is scope for the creative combination of 3-seat LR Hare with rules
that tend to reinforce hierarchy so that 3-seat LR Hare can: 1) elevate
interest in local elections with its high probability of a competitive
seat,  2) handicap rivalry between larger parties,  3) make larger parties
more attentive to minority rights/views and 4) Allow for more direct
constituent-legislator relationships than with larger party-list
proportional representation.

It also might retain the tendency of party-list PR to elect a higher
percentage of women legislators than with a ranked-choice form of PR.  My
theory is that this is because two of the three seats will tend to be
"safe".  This goes off of a theory of mine that since women tend to have a
larger "deep limbic
system<https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&ie=UTF-8#sclient=psy-ab&q=%22deep+limbic+system%22&oq=%22deep+limbic+system%22&gs_l=serp.3..0l4.39236.41736.2.42084.2.2.0.0.0.0.209.329.0j1j1.2.0.epsugrpqhmsignedin%2Chtma%3D120%2Chtmb%3D120..0.0.0..1.1.17.psy-ab.W35os1Z9Fvc&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&fp=e16824eab702e431&ion=1&biw=1366&bih=659>"
portions of their brain, they are better at the connecting/relating that is
critical for good leadership.  Unfortunately, having a bigger deep limbic
system also creates a larger vulnerability to its becoming over-active or
perturbed, which can affect the quality of decision-making in important
moments like during elections.  When (all of the) election seats are
competitive, there is more scope for competitors machiavellianly to try and
take advantage of this tendency during the election, which tragically would
then discriminate in favor of male leaders who are less good at connecting
in their leadership after the election.  But when there's both competitive
and not-so-competitive seats then there's a variety of conditions that
would help elect a better balance of male and female leaders.

dlw
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